Editorial

PCPS3360

9:17 AM on 12/23/2011 by Nicholas "bapenguin" Puleo

Before this fall started there was a battle heating up on the gaming front. It was a battle of military shooters - Modern Warfare 3 vs Battlefield 3. Activision entered the contest as the reigning champion, their franchise selling millions of copies each year across all three platforms; Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. But EA wanted to challenge the dominance with their own storied franchise with BF3.  We take a look at both games and ask - "Did their co-op promises deliver?"

While we may be a co-op focused site, games are constantly competing for our dollar. Both of these games touted their cooperative modes before release and we, in turn, promoted them to you. So while the single player campaigns, versus, and co-op make up the whole package - we want to examine what was promised for co-op and what was delivered.

Battlefield 3

We got our first taste of BF3’s co-op mode during Gamescom back in August, a mere 2 months before the game launched. While up until that point Battlefield 3 was rumored to have a full co-op campaign, it was finally revealed that we’d instead be getting a separate set of missions more akin to Modern Warfare’s Spec-Ops mode. We also learned co-op is online only in BF3.

Initially we were disappointed as we thought EA would step up to the plate and offer a more campaign-like experience. But this was just the first time we were set up for a downer. The next came when we finally got our hands on a retail copy of the game. Originally we were promised ten maps to play - in reality we got 6 missions.  And despite promises of some uniquely designed co-op scenarios, we rarely saw it in play with the exception of a sniper mission and a helicopter mission.

Modern Warfare 3

Modern Warfare 3’s co-op mode was revealed quite a bit earlier than BF3's, coming almost a full 6 months before release and fully playable at E3 2011. 

There were no surprises here, and despite the game not getting campaign co-op, we were getting a brand new survival mode on top of the Spec-Ops missions. Once again this mode is playable both locally and online, giving MW3 a big advantage over it’s competitor.

The addition of the survival mode was no doubt attributed to Sledgehammer Game’s involvement with the project and a commitment to “replay value” as Glen Schofield told us in our interview.  Not only was survival addictive and fun - but we have 16 additional spec-ops missions to play as well - a full 10 more than it’s competition.

Author

Nicholas "bapenguin" Puleo
Owner and Managing Editor

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